Even if we played forward the worst 5-percentile version of the current situation for a decade, it would be importantly disanalogous to the Cultural Revolution. So it's better to consider a reference class of more similar events: Red Scare 1, Red Scare 2 (McCarthyism), and various of the inquisitions. Possibly also placing a tiny amount of weight on the Cultural Revolution.
It's weird that so many people want to analogise the current situation to the cultural revolution - the case of a murderous autocrat, when they could choose McCarthyism (or indeed the first Red Scare), which have the same element of finger-pointing but without the violence. The cultural revolution analogy is clearly way overblown and diminishes the credibility of any claims made.
Moreover, why would one focus on the possibility of a new civil war, when a new cold war seems 1-2 orders of magnitude more likely, and no less important?
My position is more like the following:
Disanalogies with the cultural revolution:
It's weird that so many people want to analogise the current situation to the cultural revolution - the case of a murderous autocrat, when they could choose McCarthyism (or indeed the first Red Scare), which have the same element of finger-pointing but without the violence. The cultural revolution analogy is clearly way overblown and diminishes the credibility of any claims made.
Moreover, why would one focus on the possibility of a new civil war, when a new cold war seems 1-2 orders of magnitude more likely, and no less important?